Braids!!!

A good friend, that is also adopting from For His Glory, is in Haiti this week and sent me this picture of Christéla. Her hair is now long enough for the nannies to braid again! It looks so adorable on her! We will see both of our girls next week when we travel to sign our I-600... and can't wait! We don't have any process updates at this point... as far as we know we are still waiting for a judge to come out to the orphanage for Christéla's abandonment... and we are waiting to hear if we have enetered IBESR with Aliyah... we were told at one point that we "should" enter "next week..." but our agency has not been able to get confirmation on that yet... so, please pray for those two things!!! We so want our girls to be home with us... please also pray for safety in travel and that God would direct our time with both our girls while we are in Haiti -to what would be best for each of them! Thanks!

Christéla is starting to walk!

We received some new pictures of our girls from our friend Sherri who was just in Haiti... and Christéla is starting to walk! :) We also received updates on their heights and weights... Aliyah is two years old (December) and is 35 inches tall and weighs 26.75 pounds... Christéla is about 17-months, is 30 inches tall and weighs 21.25 pounds! It is amazing how much she has grown since we were there in June! She is really gaining weight and catching up - which is wonderful to see! It is also great to hear she is starting to walk! :)

New Photos...

Here's our latest photos of our girls! Oh I can't wait to hold them in March! Just hope they aren't too "scared" of me... since they don't really know me. Hopefully the pictures we sent down of us will help. :)

THANK YOU!!!

We want to thank everyone who prayed for us and who gave toward the matching grant we were awarded from LifeSong for Orphans! We just found out today that we made the $4,000 goal! LifeSong with then match that amount, giving us $8,000 toward completing the adoptions of our two precious girls! Thank you all so much! You have invested in something eternal and made a huge difference in the lives of our precious girls, Aliyah and Christéla! God bless you!!

Entering IBESR with Aliyah!

We received an update from our agency this morning... Aliyah is expected to enter IBESR next week - the week of January 26th! Yeah!

She also noted that they are still working to get the judge to come to the orphanage regarding Christéla's abandonment... praying that he comes soon and that her process will be able to start soon.

Going to Haiti!

Well, yesterday we got the great news that we can travel to Haiti to sign our I-600 for Aliyah! We are very excited to go see both our girls! We will travel in March and have several days with our girls staying with us at the hotel! (at least as we understand it...). We will also be at the orphanage some, which I'll enjoy - time to hold and love on some of the other kids there and hopefully get some pictures for friends of their children. I'm so excited to have this time to get to know our girls more. We only had about 10 minutes with Christéla when we were there in June - and she was still so weak - we are praying she is healthy when we are there and we get to see the personality God has given her! Also, when we were in Haiti in June, Aliyah wasn't feeling well either - and I only saw her beautiful, big smile once... so, I'm so looking forward to spending time with her when she is feeling better and getting a glimpse into who God has created her to be as well!

For those that are wondering, we can't sign this paperwork for Christéla's adoption until we have an abandonment decree from the government. Since we don't know how long that will take, we decided to go ahead and travel now for Aliyah's... we'll need to do another trip like this at some point in the future for Christéla's process. If we aren't in IBESR yet with Aliyah's adoption, then we'll have the opportunity to also participate in the "AOF" program... which, if it works right, will hopefully speed up her immigration process at the end, allowing us to bring her home sooner. So, please pray God's will in this... if we are in IBESR by the time we travel in March, I don't think we are supposed to do AOF... so, we are just trusting that God will work it out for the best!

Christmas Photo of Christéla

Here is a picture of Christéla we received today! This (I'm guessing) is from the Christmas party they had for all the children in the orphanage. I enjoyed reading about the Christmas party they give the kids, but I didn't realize that our girls would be there... I assumed they were probably too little to join... but, looks like I was wrong! That does my Mommy heart some good today! :)

We also learned that Aliyah has all her teeth, is growing into a very strong girl, and prefers to be out of her crib and on the floor... we also got updates on her height and weight - both of which look great. We didn't get any updates like that on Christéla yet...

One other update we received last night was that the orphanage had called the mayor and asked him to come out to the orphanage to try to get Christéla's abandonment decree started... and he asked them to call back after all the holidays. So, we are praying that now that the holidays are over, he'll come out and get this process started!

If you would like to see a few more pictures of the children celebrating Christmas at the orphanage, click here...